5 ms·

Miniaturizing a Mac

178 points by kqr2 9y ago

THE_PUN_STOPS 9y ago
Sprite_tm (Jeroen) has long been an inspiration to me. His projects are highly original and I think anyone who identifies with the hacker ethos will enjoy the projects on his website: http://spritesmods.com http://spritesmods.com
- hawski 9y ago
  Thanks for the link! I've stumbled upon this site few years ago. Recently I tried to find it again, but failed. This is such a great resource. Edit: what brought me originally to the site was this - http://spritesmods.com/?art=macsearm&page=10 http://spritesmods.com/?art=macsearm&page=10 Mac SE with guts replaced by ARM board. With deyellowed chassis, functional screen, keyboard and mouse. Also a mod of diskette.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  his article on the ubiquitous arm controller, even hard drives, was quite.. shocking.
turtlebits 9y ago
It's not really miniaturizing if you're using an emulator is it? And emulator was used for the gameboy color as well. I was expecting original hardware in a much smaller form factor. Instead this is just an development board and screen in a custom enclosure. Emulators on small devices isn't that interesting of a feat, IIRC someone ran and old version of MacOS on an Apple Watch when it first came out.
- mark-r 9y ago
  The guts of the device are irrelevant to the user of the device. That was true of the original and it's true of this replica. As long as you can't tell the behavior from the original, and it's not relying on a connection to a larger system somewhere else, I'd consider it a success.
  - cgriswald 9y ago
    While I disagree with the GP and believe this project is interesting, I can also empathize with his disappointment and sympathize with his original expectation. The use of the word miniaturization in the title was a poor choice. The audience of this article is not users, but hackers. In that context, the word miniaturization takes on a different connotation (if not meaning). The title therefore is a poor and misleading descriptor of the events that occurred (as evidenced by the GP's expectation and subsequent disappointment).
- ythn 9y ago
  Leave it to HN to poop on even the coolest of projects. "What? This tiny DIY rocket that can go all the way to Mars on a liter of hydrogen didn't use a space elevator? Disappointing."
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > the coolest of projects. But running an emulator on an off-the-shelf ARM microcontroller and putting it in a retro 3D printed case isn't really that cool. Not to say it isn't cool, but don't get carried away.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      The esp32 has a dual core Tensilica Xtensa LX6 microprocessor. It's not ARM, and he did split functionality across the cores. I agree it's not rocket science, but it doesn't appear to have been a straightforward task either.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      How about writing the emulator and interfacing the (non-ARM) chip with an inconvenient video interface? He used someone else's m68k emulator, but wrote the emulation for the rest of the hardware as custom code.
  - jankotek 9y ago
    I come her to learn something. If "hacking" is something I can do myself over weekend, I do not learn anything. And some HN folks are familiar with Mac hardware. For example PSU was little piece of art. This is really, really disappointing.
    - khedoros1 9y ago
      You can write a Mac emulator to run on an ESP32, outputting scaled video on a MIPI DSI screen over a weekend? That's really damn impressive.
- mratzloff 9y ago
  Have you done anything that impresses and inspires people in a similar way?
  - wanderingjew 9y ago
    Personally, I'm amazed someone can be so joyless.
herodotus 9y ago
This was one of the most enjoyable talks I have watched! Passion, modesty, useless and genius.
- szczys 9y ago
  Sprite_TM is my all time favorite hardware hacker. He is a great friend, and I wish we didn't live on opposite sides of the world so that I could hang out with him more frequently. His talks are always amazing. There are two others from the Hackaday Superconference which I absolutely loved: * Tamagotchi singularity builds a botnet of tamagochi by emulating the original 6502 based hardware in an underground server farm * Project Details: http://spritesmods.com/?art=tamasingularity http://spritesmods.com/?art=tamasingularity * Talk video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-e_cJ1-Gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-e_cJ1-Gs * Tiniest Game Boy Keychain is a hardware tour-de-force... someone else on this thread said they weren't impressed by emulators in small packages. This one should prove you wrong * Project details: I couldn't find it on his site, here's the Hackaday article: https://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/tiniest-game-boy-hides-in-your-pocket/ https://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/tiniest-game-boy-hides-in-yo... * Talk video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXAZZfJm-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXAZZfJm-g Those are both flashy, but I love his work on things like reverse engineering the controller for this hard drive and running his own code on it: * Project details: http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack * Talk video: http://bofh.nikhef.nl/events/OHM/video/d2-t1-13-20130801-2300-hard_disks_more_than_just_block_devices-sprite_tm.m4v http://bofh.nikhef.nl/events/OHM/video/d2-t1-13-20130801-230...
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Wow, he really likes the ESP32, huh? I always thought the ESP modules used weird Tensilica cores that were annoying to work with and lacking documentation, but I guess if you've already gone through the herculean effort of working all of that out, why switch to something like ARM?
    - unwind 9y ago
      He works at Espressif according to the article so that might have something to do with his choice of platform. Super impressive.

178 points by kqr2 9y ago

Sprite_tm (Jeroen) has long been an inspiration to me. His projects are highly original and I think anyone who identifies with the hacker ethos will enjoy the projects on his website: http://spritesmods.com http://spritesmods.com

hawski 9y ago
Thanks for the link! I've stumbled upon this site few years ago. Recently I tried to find it again, but failed. This is such a great resource. Edit: what brought me originally to the site was this - http://spritesmods.com/?art=macsearm&page=10 http://spritesmods.com/?art=macsearm&page=10 Mac SE with guts replaced by ARM board. With deyellowed chassis, functional screen, keyboard and mouse. Also a mod of diskette.
agumonkey 9y ago
his article on the ubiquitous arm controller, even hard drives, was quite.. shocking.

turtlebits 9y ago

It's not really miniaturizing if you're using an emulator is it? And emulator was used for the gameboy color as well. I was expecting original hardware in a much smaller form factor. Instead this is just an development board and screen in a custom enclosure. Emulators on small devices isn't that interesting of a feat, IIRC someone ran and old version of MacOS on an Apple Watch when it first came out.

mark-r 9y ago
The guts of the device are irrelevant to the user of the device. That was true of the original and it's true of this replica. As long as you can't tell the behavior from the original, and it's not relying on a connection to a larger system somewhere else, I'd consider it a success.
- cgriswald 9y ago
  While I disagree with the GP and believe this project is interesting, I can also empathize with his disappointment and sympathize with his original expectation. The use of the word miniaturization in the title was a poor choice. The audience of this article is not users, but hackers. In that context, the word miniaturization takes on a different connotation (if not meaning). The title therefore is a poor and misleading descriptor of the events that occurred (as evidenced by the GP's expectation and subsequent disappointment).
ythn 9y ago
Leave it to HN to poop on even the coolest of projects. "What? This tiny DIY rocket that can go all the way to Mars on a liter of hydrogen didn't use a space elevator? Disappointing."
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > the coolest of projects. But running an emulator on an off-the-shelf ARM microcontroller and putting it in a retro 3D printed case isn't really that cool. Not to say it isn't cool, but don't get carried away.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    The esp32 has a dual core Tensilica Xtensa LX6 microprocessor. It's not ARM, and he did split functionality across the cores. I agree it's not rocket science, but it doesn't appear to have been a straightforward task either.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    How about writing the emulator and interfacing the (non-ARM) chip with an inconvenient video interface? He used someone else's m68k emulator, but wrote the emulation for the rest of the hardware as custom code.
- jankotek 9y ago
  I come her to learn something. If "hacking" is something I can do myself over weekend, I do not learn anything. And some HN folks are familiar with Mac hardware. For example PSU was little piece of art. This is really, really disappointing.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    You can write a Mac emulator to run on an ESP32, outputting scaled video on a MIPI DSI screen over a weekend? That's really damn impressive.
mratzloff 9y ago
Have you done anything that impresses and inspires people in a similar way?
- wanderingjew 9y ago
  Personally, I'm amazed someone can be so joyless.

herodotus 9y ago

This was one of the most enjoyable talks I have watched! Passion, modesty, useless and genius.

szczys 9y ago
Sprite_TM is my all time favorite hardware hacker. He is a great friend, and I wish we didn't live on opposite sides of the world so that I could hang out with him more frequently. His talks are always amazing. There are two others from the Hackaday Superconference which I absolutely loved: * Tamagotchi singularity builds a botnet of tamagochi by emulating the original 6502 based hardware in an underground server farm * Project Details: http://spritesmods.com/?art=tamasingularity http://spritesmods.com/?art=tamasingularity * Talk video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-e_cJ1-Gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-e_cJ1-Gs * Tiniest Game Boy Keychain is a hardware tour-de-force... someone else on this thread said they weren't impressed by emulators in small packages. This one should prove you wrong * Project details: I couldn't find it on his site, here's the Hackaday article: https://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/tiniest-game-boy-hides-in-your-pocket/ https://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/tiniest-game-boy-hides-in-yo... * Talk video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXAZZfJm-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYXAZZfJm-g Those are both flashy, but I love his work on things like reverse engineering the controller for this hard drive and running his own code on it: * Project details: http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack * Talk video: http://bofh.nikhef.nl/events/OHM/video/d2-t1-13-20130801-2300-hard_disks_more_than_just_block_devices-sprite_tm.m4v http://bofh.nikhef.nl/events/OHM/video/d2-t1-13-20130801-230...
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Wow, he really likes the ESP32, huh? I always thought the ESP modules used weird Tensilica cores that were annoying to work with and lacking documentation, but I guess if you've already gone through the herculean effort of working all of that out, why switch to something like ARM?
  - unwind 9y ago
    He works at Espressif according to the article so that might have something to do with his choice of platform. Super impressive.